Texas Correctional Industries sends soldiers to war with good will items

Bluebonnets in Baghdad? It could happen if the wildflower seeds Texas Correctional Industries (TCI) gave to Texas Army National Guard troops now serving in Iraq take root.

The complimentary packets of wildflower seeds were just one of the good will items TCI sent along with the 3,000 soldiers of the 56th Brigade Combat Team that were deployed to Iraq from Fort Hood in January.

If it’s true that the early bird gets the worm, then these “Blue Birds” perched outside the Byrd Unit in the December darkness never go hungry.

It’s not even 4 a.m. on the next to last day of the year when the first TDCJ offender transportation bus pulls up to the back gate of Byrd, the primary prison intake facility in Huntsville, to load up passengers bound for different destinations.

Not many people, if any, go to law school for the reason Madeline Ortiz did. She went not to practice the legal profession from a plush penthouse office but to prepare herself for running a humble halfway house.